Lufthansa Will Change How You Check Bags in 2016

This year, Lufthansa is making huge strides when it comes to your checked luggage. The airline has been testing digital bag tags for a few months now, but in 2016 it plans to officially roll them out, which means some amazing perks for travelers. Perhaps most notable? The tag will allow the airline to track your bag's location, and share that information with you via an app. That means if you hop on a plane in Düsseldorf and your suitcase doesn’t make the flight, you’ll get a push notification on your phone when you land, alerting you to the issue. Within the app, travelers will be able to go ahead and enter information about where they would like the bag delivered when it does arrive at its intended destination, allowing them to bypass the all-too-familiar pain of waiting at the luggage carousel only to discover your bag isn’t there, or hanging around the airport to fill out forms in the (sometimes long) lost and found line.

If for some reason your bag ends up being permanently missing-in-action, Lufthansa plans to ultimately offer an “Instant Compensation” feature to the app, which would allow customers to not only request compensation for a missing suitcase, but also for things like delayed flights and other related inconveniences. What's German for "awesome"?

As for how to get the tags, German luggage manufacturer Rimowa has partnered with the airline to implement the tags in some of its bags. Already in testing, the tag would be integrated into the suitcase rather than attached, and would transmit all the necessary information about the bag to the airline whenever its owner checked into a flight using Lufthansa’s app. With this digital development, you can bid farewell to those sticky bag tags, too: an integrated e-ink display will register on the outside of the bag. The tag will be weather-, shock-, and moisture-resistant, preventing damage during your travels. Passengers without the Rimowa bags will also be able to print tags at home, and pick up a special holder for the tag (with the RFID technology) at the airport.

Further still, the airline will also be making it easier to drop your bag off in its hub airport locations in Munich, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf. In those airports, you’ll be able to drop your checked bag off at a self-serve kiosk, with most of the information needed to check in your bag handled by your luggage tag. Lufthansa says that the move virtually eliminates any difficulty in the check-in process for passengers, and reduces the processing time for the airline by more than 70 percent.